Sunny Shores

You ever been to happy? A land in sunny shores,
Where dreams are multiplied, and you can't ask for more.
Blue skies, grasses green flowers that fill the fields,
Where rocks are really diamonds and who cares if they are real.
Where sweethearts walk streets of gold gathering up their love
Holding on together, and thanking God above.
Let me know if you been there, I really gotta' know
Where it is and how much it cost, a place I wanna' go.
I put it in my GPS but it don't understand
Where it is or which road to choose to reach this promise land.

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”